Research
Archival Research, Qualitative Research & Documentary
HQMF’s archival research is dedicated to preserving, documenting, and sharing the history and experiences of Indian Boarding Homes Program Survivors. Through archival research, individual interviews, and documentary storytelling, the project seeks to deepen public understanding of Survivor experiences while creating a lasting historical record for future generations. The research is guided by Indigenous methodologies, ethical research practices, and meaningful engagement with Survivors, communities, Elders, and Knowledge Keepers to ensure stories are gathered and shared with respect, care, and cultural integrity.
Holding Witness: Gathering the records, stories, and memories that hold the history of the Indian Boarding Homes Program
The HQMF Keeping Place is Survivor-centred research, archival, and knowledge stewardship initiative dedicated to documenting, preserving, and sharing the histories and lived experiences of Survivors of the Indian Boarding Homes Program. More than an archive, the Keeping Place is being developed as a lasting and culturally grounded home for historical records, Survivor testimony, community knowledge, and memory.
Through extensive archival research, Survivor interviews, oral histories, and documentary storytelling, the Keeping Place seeks to build a more complete understanding of the Indian Boarding Homes Program—its development, operation, geographic reach, and lasting impacts on Survivors, families, and communities. This work is guided by Indigenous methodologies, ethical research practices, and meaningful engagement with Survivors, Elders, Knowledge Keepers, families, and communities. Central to the project is the principle that Survivor stories and knowledge must be gathered, cared for, interpreted, and shared with respect, consent, cultural integrity, and accountability.
The HQMF Keeping Place brings together researchers, filmmakers, trainees, Survivors, and community partners to locate and preserve archival records, document personal histories, identify people and places connected to the Boarding Homes Program, and weave these sources together into a fuller historical record. The work will contribute to research reports, documentary films, oral histories, digital archival collections, educational resources, historical timelines and maps, and other forms of public and community-based knowledge sharing.
At its heart, the Keeping Place is about memory for generations. By bringing archival evidence into relationship with Survivor testimony and community knowledge, HQMF is helping ensure that the experiences of Boarding Homes Survivors are not lost, fragmented, or forgotten, but preserved and honoured in ways that support truth, learning, commemoration, and intergenerational knowledge.
Information about registering for a Survivor interview and participating in the HQMF documentary will be posted here, please stay tuned.